This is my personal Book of Shadows. If you find it useful or helpful in any capacity, please consider buying me a Coffee.

Forbidden and Permissable Magic

Forbidden

  • Magic that calls on deities other than Hashem
  • Magic that replaces HaShem, rather than acting in partnership
  • Summoning spirits of the dead
  • Mediumship
  • Using Ancestors as operative magical agents
  • Familiar spirits
  • Astrology that overrides agency
  • Fortunetelling that removes agency
  • Divination that denies free will
  • Love magic that removes consent
  • Curses meant to harm
  • Coercive bindings
  • Manipulation of others’ free will
  • Illusion magic meant to deceive
  • Ego driven spiritual practice

Permitted

  • Magic that partners with divine will
  • Honoring, remembering, asking for merit from Ancestors
  • Symbolic divination used for reflection, not prediction
  • Protective amulets
  • Healing charms
  • Psalms as incantations
  • Plant, water, and home blessings
  • Blessing Objects and Tools
  • Psalms as Incantations
  • Breathwork and meditation
  • Land healing rituals for blessing and repair
  • Birth and death rituals
  • Protective knots and symbols
  • Threshold practices (doors, windows, wells)
  • Plant allies used respectfully

In Other Words: Jewish magic centers asking HaShem to act through material means — not commanding reality ourselves.

Magic Cannot:

  1. Replace HaShem with another power
  2. Deny free will or ethical responsibility
  3. Seek domination over other people or things
  4. Claim power without humility or lineage
  5. Treat creation as an object, rather than a covenantal partner

Magic Must:

  1. Acknowledge Hashem as the sole source of power
  2. Preserve free will and ethical agency
  3. Be relational, not coercive
  4. Aim at healing, protection, repair, blessing, or sanctification
  5. Be rooted in tradition, text, or embodied lineage

Constraints on Magical Practice

  1. No Magic That Overrides Consent; Coercive magic violates both halakhah and balance.
  2. No Magic That Evades Responsibility; It is unethical by definition.
  3. No Magic Without Mundane Action; Magic without material follow-through is inert. Material action without ethical reflection is blind. They must move together.
  4. No secrecy; If an action requires secrecy to feel acceptable, it is already out of balance.